Abandoned puppies dumped in Beinville Parish front yards

2014-01-08T23:14:13Z2014-01-22T23:14:05Z

BIENVILLE PARISH, LA (KSLA) -

Residents in Bienville Parish say their neighborhoods are becoming a dumping ground for unwanted dogs. John Potts found four puppies abandoned on his property Monday: "it is an epidemic that is everywhere in Bienville Parish. You drive around, there's no dog pound, there's no place to take them when you find them, you drive down the road and you see them skinny and starving and sticking their heads out of the woods, and it's just constant."

Potts says this isn't the first time someone has driven down his street in Jamestown, Louisiana to dump their dogs. The abandoned puppies are shivering from the cold temperatures outside. "I have no place to put them. I am disabled so I can't hardly spend the money to feed them but we try" Potts says as he sets down a pan of dog food.

Potts and his wife made a makeshift dog house out of a trashcan to keep the puppies warm in the freezing temperatures. Temperatures were so cold that the water in the dog's water bowl froze solid. "What is going to happen to them, are they going to get run over, are they going to get ate up by other animals?" Potts says.

The Bienville Sheriff's Office says the law requires them to pick up the dogs, but then they have nothing to do with them. There is no pound in the parish. Potts says he, "called them and asked them to try and figure out what they can do to find them a home, pick them up and take them to an animal shelter, something. But when you call them and they want to laugh at you, and say well there ain't nothing we can do, just good luck with them."

The sheriff's office says people have come forward requesting a pound, but say they just don't have the funds for it right now.

Potts has found homes for 2 of the puppies, one adopted by a Bienville Parish deputy. If you want to adopt one of the remaining abandoned dogs, contact John Potts at: 318-894-8449.